*****
Gem and I planned to shower together, right after we set up a tub for Trina. I sat in a nearby chair as Gem washed her, and the little girl practically slept through the process.
I looked on at the gentleness with which Gem washed Trina’s hair and sponged her back, and I fell more deeply in love with her right there. She would essentially be this baby girl’s mama now, and I’d be her daddy. And I was proud to have this woman by my side. I didn’t know if Jamie would ever be able to reclaim that job from Gem, but I did know that Gem would be the best mother ever.
And my mind turned to my sweet Jesse, Trina’s eight-year-old sister. I thought of her, saw her beautiful smiling face in my mind’s eye, and I fell into sobs. My body bent in half against its will, and I shuddered, tears leaking from my eyes, and I was unable to stop. I stood up quickly and left the room. I couldn’t let Trina wonder where this sadness came from.
But I cried for Trina. And Jesse. And all who would miss her, and all who would never have the chance to know her. I cried for her mother who didn’t mean to kill her little girl, and for Gem, who also loved little Jess. Her little rabbit. Well, now that rabbit would bound along the waving grasses of Watership Down for eternity.
My tears subsided, but when I felt Gem’s hand on my back, I turned and folded into her arms, and we held each other tight. I buried my face in her neck and cried with her, and no words needed to be exchanged. Everything had changed, we’d lost those we loved, and had found each other again.
“I put Trina to bed,” she said. “Hemp is standing watch while we shower.”
She stood facing me in the bathroom. I said nothing, but looked into her deep brown eyes and searched them. I did not have to look very long to see the love she felt for me.
My arms hung limp by my sides. Gem hooked her fingers beneath my tee shirt and pulled it up and over my head, then began unbuckling my belt. Just her touch aroused me in a way I couldn’t explain. After all we’d been through, our thorough exhaustion, this woman being near me was almost enough to wipe it all away.
As she opened my belt and undid the button on my jeans, lowering the zipper and dropping them down around my ankles, I reached up and began to unbutton her sheer cotton blouse. I pushed it back off her shoulders, revealing her light brown, cotton bra. I unsnapped the front hook and peeled it away.
She had begun to undo her own jeans, and slid them easily off. She put her foot on my jeans, heaped around my ankles, and I stepped out of them. I reached out for her and pulled her warm, bare body against mine, only our underwear preventing full contact top to bottom. Warm. Soft. I hadn’t felt her for so long, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. She looked down between us.
“Flexy, we have to free this. Too constricting.”
She turned and opened the door of the bathroom cabinet and withdrew a pair of scissors. She pulled my boxer briefs out on the side and cut slowly down with the scissors until they popped free of my leg. Then she repeated the same thing on the opposite side and they fell away.
“You don’t do anything the traditional way, do you?” I said, smiling.
“What’s the fun in that?” she said. “Now come in. You’re a dirty boy and I’m going to get you nice and clean.”
And she did. She used lather. Lots of lather.
Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle Page 35
